Winter 2011 photo journal; Day 1 - Big Brook Dam, Lavender Berry Farm

[moonvoice]

Big Brook Dam in Pemberton






Forest sentinel... or perhaps just waiting for some food.





Unsure, except that it's prickly.





Hi, I'm some moss!





The fungus said eat me, the paramedics said NO!





How very Blair Witch of you. - Anyone fancy a picnic at the picnic table of Blair Witch doom? (Actually, I liked it, but still, I liked the bleakness of it too).





The tiniest red arachnid you ever did see - actually, probably not the tiniest, but a very bright, red little spider!





Karri growth.





Tiny mushroom fungi - they might be toadstools, but I'd need a magnifying glass to tell you the difference.





Big Brook Dam - where you can fish for Marron (freshwater lobster). Nom nom nom.





Hai!





Hai moar!





But still, very peaceful - We sat here for rather a while, actually. Enjoying ourselves. I walked along a few different paths while Glen rested his driving feet, and then I came back and we both went back up to the car to go to our place of rest.





Which looks deceptively beautiful. Or maybe not deceptively. Maybe it was that beauty that attracted all the cockroaches to our chalet!

Comments

[white_rabbit]

Ohh, I love those tiny little fungus/mushroom growths. :D So cute. They always make things feel magical.

Also moss. I don't know why, but I have such a fondness for moss.

[skyfiery]

Awesome shots! I love the one of the tiny red spider. =D

[redsixwing]

Hooray for moss!

The prickly thing is very pretty, and I particularly like the kookaburra.

I don't believe I've ever seen a tiny red spider, so that one qualifies as tiniest. :D

[feralkiss]

MOSS. Moss is like one of the most pleasant things to look at. It's like, well, like touching fur or.. moss. Except, with your eyes. I like those shades of green and it often contrasts nicely with the soil or bark.

[ariestess]

I am completely in love with that bitty red spider! And the bitty mushrooms/toadstools.

Welcome Back!

[perzephone]

Glad you had a safe trip & your knee is giving you moar freedoms!

Was the kookaburra sitting in a gum tree? ;)

[outlineofash]

Gorgeous shots! I especially love the one of the bright red spider.

[shimmerhawk]

Yaaaay, I was hoping you'd share photos from your trip. I don't even know which one to comment on since I like them all. What an awesome looking forest that is!

[moonvoice]

Karri forests are always magical. In Summer there's less fungi, but in exchange, there's tiny, metallic blue fairywrens (the ones in my icon) flitting about the place, vines with purple blossoms (called native wisterias)... definitely a place where fae spirits frolic!

[moonvoice]

That tiny red spider was amazing! I wish I had a better lens to capture it. That was a crop of a macro! Heh.

[moonvoice]

Moss is lovely. We just don't get enough of it up here in Perth. But there's a lot of it down South where it's wetter.

[moonvoice]

Isn't moss lovely? So visually soft and texturally soothing. There was so much of it where we were. I think you'd like the karri forests. :)

[moonvoice]

The bitty mushrooms/toadstools were simply so adorable!

Merry merry king of the bush is he. :)

[moonvoice]

The kookaburra was indeed sitting in a gum tree!

[moonvoice]

That bright red spider was the bomb! :D

[moonvoice]

I've got another three days of photos too! I think you'll like some of the ones from the raptor part (day 4). I thought of all my raptor people out in the world when I was taking those photos.

[spider_fox]

Is it a spider? Something about the body and legs doesn't seem right, but it could just be a camera angle.

Lol @ blair witch photo.

[gemfyre]

That's the Lavender Farm isn't it?

We went there for lunch and the Silvereyes kept getting inside the plastic rain covers and eating the leftover cream on people's plates. And outside there were fairy-wrens and firetails and I went a bit squee.

[gemfyre]

To me it looks almost like a mite. So either it's some mite living off the spider that spun that web, or it is actually a spider.

[moonvoice]

Yeah, the Lavender farm. The premises are lovely for the shop and the cafe, but I wouldn't recommend the chalets. That said, standing outside in the morning watching silvereyes and fairywrens and firetails was really lovely.

[spider_fox]

I was thinking mite too, with the flat-looking body and the way the legs are arranged.

[silverjackal]

The tiny mushrooms/toadstools are amazing. Are you certain that "spider" is actually a spider? I'm asking because we have a species of tick here that's that shade of crimson, and I think I can see tick mouth parts, also. Or perhaps some species of mite, like the Red Velvet Mite?

Your Kookaburra photo is particularly atmospheric. And I'm very sorry to hear about the roaches! (Biologically amazing, but unhappy making to live with.

[ariestess]

*nods* Loved them!

[mirrorred_star]

Gosh, I love the closeups of the maybe-mushrooms and the new growth and the spikey plant, the spider, the small things that are beautiful yet easy to miss.